Tubular Red Fungus in a Garden

You're walking through your garden and notice a foul smell, as if something has died. Upon further investigation, you discover a group of tubular red growths on your compost or mulch. What you have is Elegant stinkhorn (Mutinus elegans), sometimes called Dog's stinkhorn, a harmless fungus that emits a foul odor.

Description

Elegant stinkhorn forms 4- to 7-inch long fruits, typically less than an inch thick. The spongy stalk is usually a light pink toward the base and a deeper pinkish-red toward the tip. A slimy brown spore mass coats the top third of the stalk, giving it the unpleasant odor. This fetid slime attracts flies and other insects that pick up the spores on their bodies and disperse them.

Where It's Found

Elegant stinkhorn usually grows in small groups on the surface of mulch, wood chips or decaying plant debris during periods of mild and damp weather. They're most commonly found in mulches and composts that tend to retain moisture and stimulate microorganism activity, including that of many bacterias and fungi.

Control

While Elegant stinkhorn is harmless to your garden, the foul odor makes it a nuisance. Since stinkhorns are most commonly found on mulches and composts with a high hardwood bark and wood chip content, making the switch to pine bark mulch or pine straw could help deter stinkhorn formation. Alternately, adding grass clippings to your wood waste before composting it reduces the carbon to nitrogen ratio in your compost to help deter stinkhorn growth.

Edibility

The Elegant stinkhorn is edible in its egg stage, when it forms a white, spherical growth resembling a puffball. The stinkhorn's smelly reputation deters most people from eating it, and as with any mushroom, take special care to identify it accurately before attempting to eat it.

About the Author

Lydia Stephens began writing professionally in 2009. She has written online for Nile Guides, SheKnows.com and various other websites and has been published in "Stringing Magazine" and "Xiamen Wave." Stephens played competitive soccer for 19 years, has been weight lifting since 2007 and enjoys running, biking and sailing. She has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of Texas.